


Letting Go

by Moit



Category: Faculty - Fandom, The Faculty (1998)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2018-05-02 21:37:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5264537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moit/pseuds/Moit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a terminal diagnosis, Zeke copes the only way he knows how.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letting Go

**Author's Note:**

> This is a songfic to Lee Brice's [I Drive Your Truck](http://youtu.be/DvxteTJUy_I) that wouldn't leave me alone.

_Eighty-nine cents in the ash tray_  
_Half empty bottle of Gatorade rolling in the floorboard_  
 _That dirty Braves cap on the dash_  
 _Dog tags hangin' from the rear view_  
 _Old Skoal can, and cowboy boots and a Go Army shirt folded in the back_  
 _This thing burns gas like crazy, but that's all right_  
 _People of their ways of coping_  
 _And I got mine_

The doctor's office was chilly, and Casey felt even colder wearing only the thin hospital gown. He shifted on the paper-covered table anxiously. He hated going to the doctor, and the longer they made him wait, the more nervous he grew. Next to him, Zeke sat on the hard plastic chair wearing a look that said he would do anything for a cigarette.

The door opened and both men straightened. The doctor's lips were pressed into a thin line. Without saying a word, he pulled some black and white photographs out of the folder he held and pinned them against the light board. To Casey's eyes, it looked like a dinner plate covered in odd shapes.

"This is a cross section of Casey's abdomen from the CT scan. This," he pointed to one of the grey shapes, "is Casey's pancreas." He moved his finger to the edge of the grey shape. "And this is a tumor in the head of your pancreas." He turned to face Casey completely. "This explains the weight loss, the abdominal pain, and the vomiting, but unfortunately I do not have good news. The cancer cells have already begun to spread your liver and lungs. Casey, I'm afraid you have stage IV pancreatic cancer."

Zeke reached out and clasped Casey's hand hard. Casey was so stunned he could only stare at the doctor.

"What's the survival rate?" was the only question he could form.

"Twenty percent of patients make it past the first year."

Casey didn't cry until they were at home. Zeke was the one who broke down in the doctor's office.

Chemotherapy was much harder than anyone every admitted. On chemo days, Casey would throw up for hours and then spend the next several days feeling miserable. Many times Zeke wondered if Casey would be more comfortable just letting the cancer take him, but Casey was a fighter. He refused to lay down and admit defeat; he also refused to leave Zeke without at least _trying_.

On the really bad days, Zeke would just curl up on the couch with him and watch Mystery Science Theatre 3000 in an effort to make Casey laugh. Sometimes Casey would just sleep through the whole thing and then wake up coughing when the credits began to roll. Zeke would reach for the metal bowl they kept by the couch and rub Casey's back soothingly as he retched.

At night, Zeke watched Casey sleep. He counted his breaths, the steady rise and fall of his chest. Casey's eyes looked sunken and pale. He'd lost so much weight, Zeke wasn't sure how his body was still going. He'd also lost all his thick dark hair from the radiation, but he was still beautiful to Zeke's eyes. Every time Casey shifted in his sleep, or groaned, Zeke's breath caught, and he waited to see Casey's chest rise and fall again.

He was terrified Casey would stop breathing as he watched, but he couldn't seem to stop himself.

The last few days were the worst. Casey couldn't eat, he was in pain constantly, and his body was starting to give up. The only thing that kept Zeke going were that Casey's eyes still shined as blue as they'd ever been, and they lit up when Zeke came into the hospital room with two slices of pepperoni pizza. Casey had been too sick to eat it, but he told Zeke how much he appreciated the gesture.

Two hours later, Casey looked up at him with those blue eyes and said, "Take me home."

Zeke started the discharge paperwork as soon as he cornered a nurse.

Casey died in their bed with Zeke curled against him. He went the way Zeke would have wanted him to go, if he had no other choice but to let him. When Zeke woke, Casey's skin was cold, but there was a ghost of a smile on his face. Zeke stayed with him for an hour, just talking and crying, before he called anybody.

Zeke still had the GTO, but after Casey died, he left it in the garage. Casey's truck was much more suited for the gravel road they lived down, and it drove better in the snow, anyway. Zeke wouldn't tell anyone, but he also liked to think that it still smelled like Casey's cologne.

Casey was buried in the Herrington cemetery next to his grandparents. Per his wishes, his favorite photograph he'd ever taken was inlaid on his tombstone: the sunset over the lake where Zeke proposed. The inscription read simply, "Casey James Connor-Tyler, beloved son and husband, 1981-2008."


End file.
